Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal
An evening pause: Played on an instrument which the website calls L’orgue de barbarie. To me it resembles a glorified organ grinder, except that it plays a wide range of midi-type sounds. Very clever. And it succeeds in making a Michael Jackson song sound interesting to me, for the first time!
Hat tip Rocco E.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Beautiful!
Apparently, these barrel organs are of modern manufacture, assembled by hand at the makers, Orgues Odin, in France. This model has 114 flutes, and excellent tone.
Thanks, Rocco E!
That’s pretty cool but I kept wondering why the guy was doing this in a scrap pile of wood. Also, looks like if he ran a bar across part of it, he wouldn’t have to use his hand to keep the paper in place.
The woodpile? Probably artistic license, based on a feeling that the juxtaposition of beat-up, weathered wood with a finely crafted wooden object is interesting.
Other players just crank out tunes on this instrument without trying to smooth the moving cardboard, but most music doesn’t require piercing as intricate as what’s seen here. Mathis must be thrilled to know that he racked up over a million views in a day, following HuffPo’s posting of his video.